DataAnnotations

1) Entity Framework contains a lot of assumptions (field name Id or ClassNameId are primary keys) that could be useful when building grids, because using these assumptions you wouldn't be forced to specify the primary key if one is allready present.

2) MVC model classes typically contain DataAnnotations which specify which fields are primary keys, which are required, which have displaynames etc. This could also be useful when building the grid. Have you given any thought to that?

Implicit assumptions are all over Entity Framework, but I agree that it makes thing behave magically which increases the risk of hard to find bugs.

As for the data annotations, I was successfull in adding support for DescriptionAttribute and KeyAttribute to the demo application. Seeems to work well.

The thing that really bugs me with the current implementation is that the implementation requires that you define your columns in two separate spots which will cause maintenance problems. I'm tinkering with a method where you define the columns in one location
and re-use it in bot the view and the controller. I'll let you know if I get anywhere...